the naturally occurring minerals with unique magnetic properties that are used in electric vehicle (EV) motors, and wind generators.
or biocarbon that can be defined as a carbonaceous material obtained through thermal treatment of biomass at low temperatures and under inert atmosphere.
"We see possible applications in thermoelectrics, batteries, catalysis, solar cells, electronic devices, structural composites and many other fields, enabling a new level of engineering on the atomic scale
and are used therefore in solar panels. However, these materials also oxidize (or rust) on the surface
substantial gains in the durability and applicability of these structures for solar panels, highly robust, self-healing coatings,
lightweight solar cells track the sun Solar cells capture up to 40 percent more energy when they can track the sun across the sky,
Now, by borrowing from kirigami, the ancient Japanese art of paper cutting, researchers at the University of Michigan have developed solar cells that can have it both ways."
what a large tracking solar panel does and condenses it into something that is essentially flat, "said Aaron Lamoureux, a doctoral student in materials science and engineering and first author on the paper in Nature Communications.
Residential rooftops make up about 85 percent of solar panel installations in the U s.,according to a report from the Department of energy,
A team of engineers and an artist developed an array of small solar cells that can tilt within a larger panel
the solar cell would split into tiny segments that would follow the position of the sun in unison."
"Solar cell researchers think of tracking in terms of how much of a solar panel the sun can"see.""When the panel is at an angle,
To make the solar array, Kyusang Lee, a doctoral student in electrical engineering, built custom solar cells in the lab of Stephen Forrest, the Peter A. Franken Distinguished University Professor of Engineering and Paul G. Goebel
because the solar cells would be very long and narrow. Scaling up to a feasible width, the cells became too long to fit into the chambers used to make the prototypes on campus,
"It could ultimately reduce the cost of solar electricity
#Genome mining effort discovers 19 new natural products in four years It took two postdoctoral researchers, a lab technician,
#Nano-dunes with the ion beam Many semiconductor devices in modern technology--from integrated circuits to solar cells and LEDS--are based on nanostructures.
where he previously headed the Center for Bioenergy & Photosynthesis. Ultimately, researchers hope to create an entirely synthetic system that is more robust and efficient than its natural counterpart.
where he previously headed the Center for Bioenergy & Photosynthesis. Ultimately, researchers hope to create an entirely synthetic system that is more robust and efficient than its natural counterpart.
Roofing tiles that double as solar panels. Sun powered cell phone chargers woven into the fabric of backpacks.
Better Solar cells Though the Nature Communications study focused on just one organic material, phthalocyanine, the new research provides a powerful way to explore many other types of organic materials, too--with particular promise for improved solar cells.
A recent U s. Department of energy report identified one of the fundamental bottlenecks to improved solar power technologies as"determining the mechanisms by
and solar technologies,"says Furis, who directs UVM's program in materials science, "and to do that we need a deeper understanding of exciton diffusion.
#Engineers invent transparent coating that cools solar cells to boost efficiency Every time you stroll outside you emit energy into the universe:
Now three Stanford engineers have developed a technology that improves on solar panel performance by exploiting this basic phenomenon.
Their invention shunts away the heat generated by a solar cell under sunlight and cools it in a way that allows it to convert more photons into electricity.
The hotter solar cells get, the less efficient they become at converting the photons in light into useful electricity.
patterned silica material laid on top of a traditional solar cell. The material is transparent to the visible sunlight that powers solar cells,
but captures and emits thermal radiation, or heat, from infrared rays.""Solar arrays must face the sun to function,
even though that heat is detrimental to efficiency, "Fan said.""Our thermal overlay allows sunlight to pass through,
In their new paper, the researchers applied that work to improve solar array performance when the sun is beating down.
The Stanford team tested their technology on a custom-made solar absorber--a device that mimics the properties of a solar cell without producing electricity--covered with a micron-scale pattern designed to maximize the capability to dump heat
Their experiments showed that the overlay allowed visible light to pass through to the solar cells, but that it also cooled the underlying absorber by as much as 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
For a typical crystalline silicon solar cell with an efficiency of 20 percent, 55 F of cooling would improve absolute cell efficiency by over 1 percent,
which are preferred also sites for large solar arrays. They believe they can scale things up so commercial and industrial applications are feasible
The research, supported by DOE's Bioenergy Technologies Office, has implications for the energy efficiency and cost of catalytic upgrading technologies proposed for use in biorefineries.
and combined with water for the synthesis of molecular products that form biomass, says Chris Chang, an expert in catalysts for carbon-neutral energy conversions. n our system,
Revealed by a brand new lectron camera, one of the world speediest, this unprecedented level of detail could guide researchers in the development of efficient solar cells, fast and flexible electronics and high-performance chemical catalysts.
Understanding these dynamic ripples could provide crucial clues for the development of next-generation solar cells, electronics and catalysts.
and could be used in future solar cells. Because of this strong interaction with light, researchers also think they may be able to manipulate the material properties with light pulses. o engineer future devices,
and believe that a rectenna with commercial potential may be available within a year. e could ultimately make solar cells that are twice as efficient at a cost that is ten times lower,
or other material that would produce flexible solar cells or photodetectors. Cola sees the rectennas built so far as simple proof of principle.
Using biomass a biological material from living or recently living organisms, as a replacement for graphite, has drawn recent attention because of its high carbon content, low cost and environmental friendliness.
UC Riverside engineers were drawn to using mushrooms as a form of biomass because past research has established they are highly porous,
In fact, it could literally reshape solar cells. Scientists could potentially create ight antennasthin, pole-like devices that could absorb light from all directions,
Devices such as solar cells and photosensors work better if the crystals grow vertically because vertical crystals can be packed more densely in the semiconductor,
#Next-generation perovskite solar cells made stable by metal oxide andwichucla professor Yang Yang, member of the California Nanosystems Institute, is renowned a world innovator of solar cell technology
whose team in recent years has developed next-generation solar cells constructed of perovskite, which has remarkable efficiency converting sunlight to electricity.
Despite this success, the delicate nature of perovskite a very light, flexible, organic-inorganic hybrid material stalled further development toward its commercialized use.
This is a significant advance toward stabilizing perovskite solar cells. Their new cell construction extends the cell effective life in air by more than 10 times, with only a marginal loss of efficiency converting sunlight to electricity.
Postdoctoral scholar Jingbi You and graduate student Lei Meng from the Yang Lab were the lead authors on the paper. here has been much optimism about perovskite solar cell technology
In less than two years, the Yang team has advanced perovskite solar cell efficiency from less than 1 percent to close to 20 percent. ut its short lifespan was a limiting factor we have been trying to improve on since developing perovskite cells with high efficiency.
Endowed Chair in Engineering at UCLA, said there are several factors that lead to quick deterioration in normally layered perovskite solar cells.
The next step for the Yang team is to make the metal oxide layers more condensed for better efficiency and seal the solar cell for even longer life with no loss of efficiency.
says that nine months ago surgeons implanted two bunches of silicon electrodes, called Utah arrays, into the volunteer motor cortex.
and store up to 10kwh of energy from wind or solar panel. The reserves can be drawn on
says the turbines will in time produce electricity more cheaply than offshore wind farms. It hopes to install its new design in
what is called a tidal energy fence, one kilometre long, in the Bristol Channel#an estuary dividing South Wales from the west of England#at a cost of £143m.
and solar energy#gave the go-ahead for a large offshore wind farm that could provide power for up to two million homes.
The new wind farm is to be built near the Dogger Bank in the North sea and will have 400 turbines.
with the new development, will form one of the largest offshore wind farms in the world. But the fossil fuel industry is far from abandoning its own interest in British waters as the energy giant BP has announced that it is to invest about £670m to extend the life of its North sea assets.
and gives scientists a way to potentially produce high amounts of oil and biomass. In terms of human medicine this discovery gives scientists a promising new model to study tumor suppression and growth.
Grasslands support more species than cornfields In Wisconsin bioenergy is for the birds. Really. In a study published today in the journal PLOS ONE University of Wisconsin-Madison
whether corn and perennial grassland fields in southern Wisconsin could provide both biomass for bioenergy production and bountiful bird habitat.
These grassland fields can also produce ample biomass for renewable fuels. Monica Turner UW-Madison professor of zoology and study lead author Peter Blank a postdoctoral researcher in her lab hope the findings help drive decisions that benefit both birds
and biofuels too by providing information for land managers farmers conservationists and policy makers as the bioenergy industry ramps up particularly in Wisconsin and the central U s as bioenergy production demand increases we should pay attention to the ecological consequences says Turner.
when UW-Madison's Carol Williams coordinator of the Wisconsin Grasslands Bioenergy Network and the DNR's David Sample approached Turner
of which are used already for small-scale bioenergy production--and 11 cornfields in southern Wisconsin. Over the course of two years the researchers characterized the vegetation growing in each field calculated
and estimated the biomass yields possible and counted the total numbers of birds and bird species observed in them.
According to Blank and Turner the study is one of the first to examine grassland fields already producing biomass for biofuels
and is one of only a few analyses to examine the impact of bioenergy production on birds.
and other types of vegetation the new findings indicate grassland fields may represent an acceptable tradeoff between creating biomass for bioenergy and providing habitat for grassland birds.
Our study suggests diverse bioenergy crop fields could benefit birds more so than less diverse fields.
new findings indicate grassland fields may represent an acceptable tradeoff between creating biomass for bioenergy and providing habitat for grassland birds.
By locating biomass-producing fields near existing grasslands both birds and the biofuels industry can win.
They also add that the biomass yields calculated in the study may represent the low end of
We really can produce bioenergy and provide habitat for rare birds in the state. Story Source:
The ability to mold inorganic nanoparticles out of materials such as gold and silver in precisely designed 3d shapes is a significant breakthrough that has the potential to advance laser technology microscopy solar cells electronics environmental testing disease
and replace them with synthetic components to create a new generation of solar cells. Evans concludes:"
#New Technique Increases Nanofiber Production Rate Fourfold Nanofibers polymer filaments only a couple of hundred nanometers in diameter have a huge range of potential applications, from solar cells
Tangled tale Nanofibers are useful for any application that benefits from a high ratio of surface area to volume solar cells, for instance,
and more spores could potentially generate even more power per unit area than a wind farm. The Columbia team other new evaporation-driven engine the Moisture Mill contains a plastic wheel with protruding tabs of tape covered on one side with spores.
This development would steadily produce as much electricity as a wind turbine, Sahin said
#Safe drinking water Via Solar power Desalination Natasha Wright, an MIT Phd student in mechanical engineering, has designed a solar powered system that makes water safe to drink for rural, off-grid Indian villages.
even at the extremely low power levels characteristic of tiny solar cells. Previous experimental ultralow-power converters had efficiencies of only 40 or 50 percent.
Where its predecessors could use a solar cell to either charge a battery or directly power a device,
Ups and downs The circuit chief function is to regulate the voltages between the solar cell, the battery,
and falls depends on the voltage generated by the solar cell, which is highly variable. So the timing of the switch throws has to vary, too.
whose selection is determined by the solar cell voltage. Once again, when the capacitor fills, the switches in the inductor path are flipped. n this technology space,
Scientists are also working on solar cells based on quantum dots, which rely on the dotsability to convert light into electrons.
#New Technology Could Transform Solar energy Storage Chemists at UCLA have developed a new technology that is capable of storing solar energy for up to several weeks an advance that could change the way scientists think about designing solar cells.
The materials in most of today residential rooftop solar panels can store energy from the sun for only a few microseconds at a time.
A new technology developed by chemists at UCLA is capable of storing solar energy for up to several weeks an advance that could change the way scientists think about designing solar cells.
To capture energy from sunlight, conventional rooftop solar cells use silicon, a fairly expensive material. There is currently a big push to make lower-cost solar cells using plastics
rather than silicon, but today plastic solar cells are relatively inefficient, in large part because the separated positive and negative electric charges often recombine before they can become electrical energy. odern plastic solar cells don have well-defined structures like plants do
because we never knew how to make them before, Tolbert said. ut this new system pulls charges apart
and keeps them separated for days, or even weeks. Once you make the right structure,
The researchers are already working on how to incorporate the technology into actual solar cells. Yves Rubin, a UCLA professor of chemistry and another senior co-author of the study,
pave roads with solar panels that could eventually provide power for street lights and traffic controls, and maybe even homes and electric vehicles.
What the engineers came up with was a system of prefabricated concrete covered by solar panels
The project developers believe about 20%of the country roads would be suitable for solar panel installations.
A somewhat different approach in the U s. Idaho-based Solar Roadways has been working on a similar goal paving roads and other surfaces with solar panels.
a technology that replaces the oil-based feedstock for part of the synthetic rubber-making process with renewable biomass.
#Why is Apple working on wind turbine technology? Filing a patent for a new energy storage and generation system,
and Trademark Office in June 2011 details an alternative wind turbine design that generates electricity from converting heat energy instead of rotational energy made possible by the movement of blades.
and Apple powering their data centers with solar panels and wind farms to retailers turning to rooftop solar and biogas to power their big box stores and distribution centers,
the number of U s. companies generating their own energy on-site is soaring. According to Wall street journal, since 2006 the number of electricity-generating units at commercial and industrial locations has quadrupled from about 10,000 to 40,000.
The strong growth can be explained partly by the falling prices of solar panels. Take Walmart for example:
when the first solar arrays went up on its store roofs in California, the installed costs of Wal-mart Stores Inc. s solar systems have dropped from $6
And as prices continue to fall for solar panels and other energy sources it looks like utilities will be forced to innovate e
Another 25 GW of capacity would come from concentrated solar plants, which use thousands of mirrors to concentrate the sun onto heating liquid,
or seek out other established solar panel makers to establish factories there. Photo: Flickr user zigbphotography, CC 2. 0 Related:
Collective-Evolution notes that the solar panels embedded in the concrete bike path are not as efficient as panels installed on homes
the solar panels on the smart highway cover about 75 yards of roadway which is slightly more than you can fit on a roof.
Nanofibril films may be used in photovoltaic cells and also in displays because they have better light-transmission properties than glass,
Wee not talking about a battery with a solar panel on it: it a hoto batterywhere the anode itself is made of titanium nitride and ambient light.
Keuka Energy recently launched a 125-kilowatt prototype vessel that uses its novel floating wind turbine design paired with liquid-air energy storage to create a steady source of electricity.
The Florida-based company claims that its wind turbine design allows for larger turbines that could produce far more electricity.
The world largest single offshore wind turbine is currently about 6 megawatts; Keuka says its full-size turbines could produce at least double that amount.
The company also says its wind turbine design is more cost effective thanks to elimination of the gear box and the use of lightweight aluminum blades that cost less than 10 percent the price of traditional composite blades.
even when using systems called solar fuel cells solar cells immersed in the water it splitting. Now researchers from Eindhoven University of Technology in The netherlands and the Dutch Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) report in the 17 july issue of Nature Communications that they have improved tenfold the hydrogen producing capacity of a solar fuel cell.
#Solar cells Could Capture Infrared Rays for More Power Nanocrystals and organic materials convert low energy photons into visible light that a solar cell can capture.
Cadmium selenide nanocrystals with one kind of organic coating left produced violet light, while cadmium selenide nanocrystals with another type of organic coating right produced green.
Solar cell efficiencies could increase by 30 percent or more with new hybrid materials that make use of the infrared portion of the solar spectrum,
solar infrared rays normally passes right through the photovoltaic materials that make up today's solar cells.
or pconvertedinto a higher energy photon that is readily absorbed by photovoltaic cells, generating electricity from light that would normally be wasted.
#Amazon Invests In 150mw Indiana Wind farm To Power Its Data centers Amazon today announced that it is working with the Pattern Energy Group to construct
and operate a 150 megawatt wind farm in Benton County, Indiana. The new wind farm will go online in about a year
and the expectation is that it will supply at least 500,000 megawatt hours of wind power annually.
but the mazon Web Services Wind farm (Fowler Ridge) that the full name of what was called previously the owler Ridge IV Wind Projectwill only be used to power Amazon AWS data centers.
US WEST (Oregon), EU (Frankfurt) and its AWS Govcloud. mazon Web Services Wind farm (Fowler Ridge) will bring a new source of clean energy to the electric grid where we currently operate a large number of datacenters
Batteries can store power from solar panels or wind turbines to provide round-the-clock power. Alternatively, diesel generators can be used.
#Will a Breakthrough Solar technology See the Light of Day? The power unit is a rectangular slab about the size of a movie theater screen.
and an equal number of even smaller solar cells, each the size of the tip of a ballpoint pen.
This year it demonstrated that it could use a version of its technology to make a novel kind of solar cell that,
some believe, could convert half of the energy in sunlight into electricity, about three times better than conventional solar cells.
Semprius must scale up the production of its solar cells significantly. Right now it can make enough solar units to produce six megawatts of power per year,
In the heyday of the solar technology bubble, the ill-fated startup Solyndra raised about $1 billion from venture capitalists
The idea is that you can increase the amount of energy any solar cell gathers by putting lenses over the cell to focus light into it.
Existing versions of this technology might use a lens with an area of about 400 square centimeters and focus it on a one-centimeter solar cell, for a concentration ratio of 400.
Semprius stamp makes it possible to make arrays of solar cells that are far smaller and thinner than the ones that had been used in concentrating photovoltaics.
For the concentrating technology to work the solar cells need to be picked up and arranged in an array
and transfer thousands of the tiny solar cells at once without breaking them, completely changing the economics of using small solar cells.
Small cells have many advantages; because they require little material, they can be made of expensive types of semiconductors that are far more efficient than silicon.
and real estate to generate the same amount of power as a typical solar cell. These advantages,
but also flooded the market with cheap solar panels. Given the supply of cheap solar panels, it became nearly impossible for companies with alternative technologiesuch as thin film solar
or concentrated photovoltaicso compete. Dozens of promising solar startups failed and the projected market for concentrated photovoltaics shrank,
conventional silicon solar panels still have room to become significantly cheaper and more efficient. New ways of manufacturing silicon wafers, the most expensive part of a solar cell, could cut wafer costs in half
or more (see raying for an Energy Miracle. New solar cell designs are edging up their efficiencies.
Such advances might eventually make solar power cheaper than fossil fuels, even without Semprius technology. But silicon-based solar power is not yet there,
Thus, if Semprius is right that it will soon have technology to make solar panels capable of producing electricity at around 5 cents per kilowatt-hour,
including jobs that involve handling delicate materials such as thin semiconductors for new, advanced solar cells. But the technology also offers a cheap way to pick up just about anythingabric, bags of chips, 50-pound boxes of paper, single pieces of paper, mobile phones.
relatively high-voltage solar cells to generate the needed electricity, along with inexpensive new catalyst materials based on nickel and iron for two electrodesne produces hydrogen
The solar cells use an inexpensive and easily manufactured material known as perovskite, which has been generating excitement in the research community
but consider that most solar cells convert only 16 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity,
For one thing, it only lasts a few hours before the solar cell performance quickly drops off. Researchers aren sure why perovskite materials degrade quickly
or improving the way the solar cells are sealed against the elements. Researchers recently demonstrated a perovskite solar cell that lasted over a month
#The Coming Era Of Self-Assembly Using Microfluidic Devices When it comes to building microscopic devices,
When experts talk about future solar cells they usually bring up exotic materials and physical phenomena. In the short term however a much simpler approach stacking different semiconducting materials that collect different frequencies of light could provide nearly as much of an increase in efficiency as any radical new design.
The startup Semprius based in Durham North carolina says it can produce very efficient stacked solar cells quickly
Conventional solar cells convert less than 25 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity. Semprius has come up with three key innovations:
In its designs Semprius uses tiny individual solar cells each less than a millimeter across. That reduces costs for cooling
but also stacks several different combinations resulting in a solar panel that can capture more energy from sunlight. Semprius has demonstrated cells made of three semiconductor materials stacked on top of a fourth solar cell that would not have been compatible otherwise.
It has made two versions of the device this year one with an efficiency of 43.9 percent
In addition to being fast and precise the approach also makes it possible to reuse the expensive crystalline wafers that multijunction solar cells are grown on.
cheaper solar cells. But this is usually done with lenses or mirrors, which must be moved precisely as the sun advances across the sky to ensure that concentrated sunlight remains focused on the cells.
where a small solar cell is mounted to generate electricity. As the day goes on, the beam of light from the lenses moves and the material adapts,
compared to eight cents per kilowatt-hour for the best conventional solar panels. This month, the company received the first installments of a $2. 2 million grant from ARPA-E. The ARPA-E funding will allow the company to scale up from prototypes just 2. 5 centimeters across to make 30
a program director at ARPA-E, says the main remaining challenge is increasing the amount of sunlight that makes it to the solar cells,
or reflected en route to the solar cells r
#Cheap and Nearly Unbreakable Sapphire Screens Come into View This fall, rumor has it, Apple will start selling iphones with a sapphire screen that is just about impossible to scratch.
so it could also lead to better and cheaper electronics and solar cells. Sapphire, or crystalline aluminum oxide, is made in nature
Ice can take whole wind farms offline and wreak havoc on the grid in places such as Colorado,
#Sharp Demonstrates Ultra-Efficient Solar cells The best solar cells convert less than one-third of the energy in sunlight into electricity
If it can be commercialized it would double the amount of power a solar cell can generate offering a way to make solar power far more economical.
when sunlight strikes a solar cell it produces some very high-energy electrons but within a few trillionths of a second those electrons shed most of their energy as waste heat.
The Sharp team found a way to extract these electrons before they give up that energy thereby increasing the voltage output of their prototype solar cell.
In theory solar cells that exploit this technique could reach efficiencies over 60 percent. The approach is one of several that could someday break open the solar industry
High-efficiency solar cells would lower the cost of installation which today is often more expensive than the cells themselves.
and figuring out how to make them with high precision (see Capturing More Light with a Single Solar cell and Nanocharging Solar).
which create a shortcut for high-energy electrons to move out of the solar cell. Another way to achieve ultra-high efficiencies now is by stacking up different kinds of solar cells (see Exotic Highly Efficient Solar cells May Soon Get Cheaper)
but doing so is very expensive. Meanwhile MIT researchers are studying the transient behavior of electrons in organic materials to find inexpensive ways to make ultra-efficient solar cells.
Each of the alternative approaches is at an early stage. James Dimmock the senior researchers who developed the new device at Sharp says he expects that his technique will initially be used to help boost the efficiency of conventional devices not to create new ones s
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